Product Design

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS, IDEA AND CONSUMER.

Product design is a process. It’s about developing a deep understanding of the business, consumer, design, engineering, manufacturing, automation and statistical measures. The result is a reproducible solution that delights the consumer at an affordable price point. SoMA employs a multi-disciplinary approach to product design – with specialists in industrial design, anthropology, mechanical, electrical, software and optical engineering. This team of highly talented and experienced individuals is accountable for taking an idea from its conceptual state to a physical reality, while ensuring the solution meets or exceeds clearly defined business objectives. Complex regulatory guidelines. Limited budgets. Aggressive schedules. Our team is up to any challenge you bring our way.

Capabilities

Industrial Design

Design at its heart is a service for humanity. It’s about crafting solutions that make people’s lives more productive, comfortable, enjoyable, efficient, and secure.

Thus the experience of a product will never be what matters; it will always be about the experience of the person as they use the device and watch it change their lives.

For us, there are no grey areas. Design balances essential functional characteristics with visual magic to deliver an emotional connection – and a soul that you resonate with.

Emotion – Experience – Utility – Material

Engineering

We love to navigate complex challenges.

We tackle ambiguity, complexity, and degrees of chaos, looking for elegantly simple solutions.

We specialize and work efficiently in the conceptual front end, while facilitating collaboration with our client’s engineers to assure a seamless handoff when that time arrives.

Our programs often combine mechanical, hardware, software and optical engineering – integrating a specialized team that snaps together with practiced ease, from prototypes to patents.

Qualitative Research

On its face, qualitative research is there to help you understand how X plays a role in causing Y, then define the process that connects X and Y.

But there’s a deeper human element.

Products that quicken the pulse are born from user insight. We work side-by-side with you to profile living, breathing people and their real-life scenarios. Our interview process is all about gaining a deep understanding of your target customer’s motivations, aspirations, values and needs.

As these interviews progress we become aware of household characteristics, usage patterns, spending, and to some degree industry dynamics. Ideally, this results in a product that people pick up, adopt quickly, and favor long-term.

There’s a positive by-product of our up-front research: While many businesses ride the little waves from one fad to another, SoMA’s inspired products quite often redefine a market and find themselves in production for years.

User Experience Design

User experience design works from the outside in.

It starts with the goals the user is trying to achieve, the broader goals of the business, the capabilities of the technology, and discrete value-driven tasks.

Cultural behavior drives our software development, defining how it will act and communicate. Like learning to use a pair of scissors, it is simple, comfortable, predictable, and intuitive.

We avoid solutions that place the user in difficult, problematic or embarrassing situations.

Graphic Design

Today product and brand are one and the same.

Names, logos, packaging, typography, photography — these are the successful product’s passport. The intangibles of graphic design are critical touchpoints that position the product experience in the consumer’s mind.

To capture a buyer’s attention, new products must evoke the brand’s essence in a nanosecond.

Too often this is treated as an afterthought. But graphic design is a powerful asset and should be carefully considered from the product’s point of inception all the way through to its fit and finish.

SoMA, Inc.Stevan Wittenbrock is the founder of SoMA. With more than 30 years of design experience, and a rich history of product innovation, Steve leads a team of highly talented individuals with a shared interest in creating products that are visually elegant, functionally effective and simple to operate. Your SoMA team will be composed of professionals with specialized skill sets to meet your individual objectives.http://somainc.com/wp-content/themes/soma/images/SoMA_Logo_Desktop@2x.pnghttp://somainc.com/